Seth Terkper, a former finance minister, has refuted claims that John Dramani Mahama's administration taxed items like cutlasses and condoms.

In a tweet in response to former presidential spokeswoman Koku Anyidoho, Terpker, who served as Minister of Finance throughout the Mahama administration, stated that the idea was incorrect.

The former minister claimed that he had repeatedly challenged anyone to make cutlasses and condoms available if they had any proof that such taxes had been imposed or that such taxes had been repealed by the current administration. However, this challenge had received no answer.

Anyidoho had tweeted: "Who taxed condoms and cutlasses in this country when he was President?" reference to claims that Mahama had at a point taxed the two products.

"Wrong!! My good brother. I have been challenging anyone to cite the provision in the Customs Act and relevant Tariff # that imposed such taxes. He or she can also cite the "amendments" by the current administration. None to date but still on standby," Terkper hit back.

Find Terpker's tweet below:

In the run up to the 2016 elections, the then running-mate of the flagbearer of the then opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, accused the government of undermining economic growth by overburdening businesses with taxes.

Speaking on Accra-based Joy FM, Dr Bawumia said the government had mismanaged the economy to a point where it had to rely desperately on raising taxes to generate revenue.

He said: “You have a government where you have cutlasses being taxed; condoms being taxed…. When you become desperate, this is what happens; and when you mismanage the economy into this hole then, anything sounds great to you. You don’t have any option and this is the problem.

“Anything that is taxable and that can feasibly be taxed, they are trying to impose tax on them. All of these are hurting the economy and therefore you are not going to get the growth, and when you don’t get the growth, you will not get the revenue, and when you don’t get the revenue, you go back to increasing taxes to get the revenue, and then you are in a cyclical downward spiral. So they have it wrong and we’ll change that particular policy.”